Each runner must have an expert knowledge of his or her own body and how it responds to different conditions during the weeks of running. Runners receive counsel from other runners, helpers and health care providers, all of whom advise them on all aspects of health, food, drink, gear, running style and strategy. They report that after a difficult transition in the first two or three weeks, the body adapts to long daily distances and the middle period of the race can become a flow, remarkable as this seems. But the runner must be ready to continue with determination when inner weather can range from a crisis of low physical energy and mood to an opposite state of overflowing strength and joy, described by Stutisheel Lebedev of Ukraine, who has completed the race nine times.

He said, “I felt a great inner peace, as if I were at the bottom of the ocean or deep, deep in my heart. On the other hand, I experienced a very powerful energy flowing through my body, often causing goose bumps on my skin. This state has been described as a super receptivity to everything coming from above and super efficiency on the physical plane.”